


By the Will of the Whills

by MiriamKenneath



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Character Histories, Getting Together, Jedha, M/M, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-05-31 13:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19426765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiriamKenneath/pseuds/MiriamKenneath
Summary: Baze and Chirrut, from childhood to the Imperial occupation of NiJedha.





	By the Will of the Whills

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rivulet027](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivulet027/gifts).



Baze was the tenth-born child of the third son of Clan Melbus.

They were nomadic pastoralists. Nerf herders. Baze’s earliest memories were of the desolate beauty of the Jedha moon’s cold steppe and its long, tough grasses, of the gentle sounds and strong smells of the clan’s two-hundred-head nerf herd.

Their life wasn’t lavish, not even in the best of times, and always they seemed to teeter on the brink of starvation. An unusually long winter or a rainy season that arrived too late would push them over the edge.

In Baze’s fifth year, the rainy season never came at all. Clan Melbus had too many mouths and not enough food. His mother cried; his father shook his head and frowned. In Baze’s fifth year, he and his father took a week-long journey overland on foot to fabled NiJedha.

Baze felt overwhelmed by the sacred city, vacillating between awe and terror. Before then, he’d only ever known his family and a handful of individuals from neighbouring Clans. He’d only ever lived in a small hut made of hide and bone. In NiJedha, though, there were so many people in one place! So many stone buildings piled high practically on top of one another!

His father escorted him up the steps and into the biggest, tallest building of all: The Temple of the Kyber.

Baze gaped at glittering mosaics covering the walls and ceiling made entirely of what he would only later learn were kyber crystals. Excited, he turned to his father, to point, to exclaim…

…but his father was already gone. No goodbyes. He’d tithed Baze to the Whills.

They were called the Guardians of the Whills, and when he reached the age of majority, Baze would be inducted into their Holy Order.

In the meantime, he would receive shelter, sustenance and education. The food was better than anything Baze had heretofore experienced, and so for that matter were the beds in the hall of residence. The education, however, was wholly new.

Even at the tender age of five years old, Baze was quick to realise he was already behind. He made up for some of that difference with his fists – these soft city children wouldn’t have lasted half a day on the steppe! – and as for the rest, well, as for the rest, he had Chirrut to help him.

Chirrut Îmwe was smaller than Baze, and a year younger, but his demeanour made him seem significantly older. He was the only son of a rich NiJedha family, and he’d been baptised and raised in the faith. He hadn’t been tithed to the Whills like Baze, no, not Chirrut; he’d come to them of his own youthful accord. He’d simply told his parents this was where he belonged, and his parents had accepted their son’s insight without question.

Just how did he know? Well, there was something…something very, very _special_ about Chirrut. Everyone who met him knew it immediately. Later, Baze would learn that this special thing had name: Force-sensitivity. Chirrut was nearly strong enough in the Force, in fact, to have been trained as a Jedi Initiate. As it was, it didn’t matter that he was blind – he seemed to see the world around them better than anybody.

He saw _Baze_ better than anybody.

Years passed, and Baze grew. He also grew into his role, and if he’d never be brilliant at memorising liturgy, never mind interpreting its wisdom, at least he’d acquired some skill at arms. That’s what a Guardian of the Whills was meant to be, after all: a protector.

Protect the Temple, protect the faithful, protect each other. Baze was confirmed to the Holy Order when he reached adulthood, and he took his threefold responsibilities very, very seriously.

Whereas the ever-cheerful Chirrut seemed, at times, to take nothing seriously whatsoever…though anyone who had seen him fight would never doubt his competency. His sunny personality complemented Baze’s more sombre one, and more and more, they came to rely upon one another.

Love was not forbidden amongst the Guardians, provided that it did not interfere with their duties to the Whills. They were not like other Force-worshiping Holy Orders; they were not like the Jedi. Love between Baze and Chirrut, such as it was, grew gradually. Theirs was no great storybook romance; neither of them had any use for such flights of fancy. It was simply a natural progression of their friendship from childhood, a silly tussle one day that became something rather more than a tussle.

Baze didn’t know what to put where or how their bodies were supposed to fit together. As usual, Chirrut helped him learn what to do. His patience was endless, as was his laughter – and eventually Baze got the hang of the joys of giving and receiving pleasure.

They never looked back after that. Chirrut, for his part, would have pointed out that he _couldn’t_.

They’d heard of the destruction of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and the enforced Imperial suppression of the Jedi Order. It was horrific, but the horrors were distant. Or so they told themselves. They’d thought that their small, Outer Rim moon would be safe.

But they were wrong.

When the Empire came to Jedha, they came first to the Temple of the Kyber, and they came with overwhelming force. The Guardians of the Whills fought courageously, but in the end they could not stop the stormtroopers from tearing down the ancient kyber mosaics and defiling the temple. They could not stop the destruction of their Holy Order. They could not stop the Empire from occupying NiJedha. They could not stop the oppression.

Many people died when the Guardians were broken. The Guardians themselves, the Temple faithful. Many people died afterwards, too. Tourists. Worshipers who practised other faiths. Innocent bystanders. Jedha natives. Even the nomadic pastoralist clans of the remote, cold steppes. Bodies piled on top of bodies on top of bodies, too many to count.

Thus ended Baze’s faith in the Whills. If he were honest, he wasn’t even sure he’d ever been _faithful_ , not really, not like Chirrut. But Chirrut believed the Will of the Whills continued to govern their fate; Baze was content to let him continue to believe that.

He still had Chirrut, regardless, and Chirrut still had him. He’d failed to protect the Temple; he’d failed to protect its faithful. But Baze could remain at Chirrut’s side and protect him – and he would.

He would unto death.

* * *

_**-fin-** _


End file.
